Donny Martorello wants to kill Wolves faster at the demands of Ranchers like Don Dashiell

Donny Martorello wants to kill Wolves faster at the demands of Ranchers like Don Dashiell

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This appears to be an accurate statement made by The Seattle Times… The Faster you help us Grow, the faster we will be successful in stopping them before more Wolves Get Slaughtered. https://continuetogive.com/protectthewolves

Protect The Wolves® Still Contends that Martorello is in direct Violation of the Indian Trust, as well as The Public Trust. WDFW appears to be caving to Rancher Special Interests which is not managing the Trust resources as the Trustees have been mandated to do so.. This management Protocol is in Direct Conflict with both the Indian Trust as well as The Public Trust. Martorello is choosing to manage our resources with the ranchers demands in mind!

Sadly Our Petition to Terminate or relocate Grazing Allotments that was hand delivered to Travis Fletcher, as well as emailed to all members on the WAG email list was not even discussed at the March 29th – 30th WAG meeting.

Protect The Wolves® has requested a Closed session for them and their experts at the next Wolf Advisory Group Meeting. Francine has already closed a session in 2015 for a Zoo Speaker and a children’s group., if they fail to honor our request, it will not look very good for Francine Madden or WDFW. Clearly the only Plan in Martorellos mind is to slaughter wolves faster at the request of ranchers as seen in his quote below.

Changes recommended by the group this year would allow a swifter deployment of lethal removal of wolves, particularly in the case of an acute outbreak of aggression toward livestock. Fish and Wildlife makes the final decision on the policy, and its implementation.

The goal of quicker intervention is to save more wolves and livestock. “The preference is to change the behavior immediately,” said Donny Martorello, wolf- policy lead for the state.

The Washington State Legislature and Wolf Advisory Group, assembled by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, both are grappling with creating new policies to help the state achieve recovery goals.

HB 2126 would create a new grant administered by the state Department of Agriculture to deploy nonlethal wolf-deterrent tools and strategies with ranchers through a newly created nonprofit. An advisory group consisting of local conservation-district officials in northeastern Washington would help direct use of the money from private and public grants.

The idea is to use existing, trusted, local community networks to help build up acceptance of and adoption of nonlethal wolf-deterrent methods, said Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, a supporter of the bill — and whose district is home to 16 of the state’s 20 wolf packs.

The bill already has passed the House with no opposition and now heads to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Jay Shepherd, who formerly worked with the Department of Fish and Wildlife helping ranchers coexist with wolves, said the new nonprofit would “help ranchers help themselves.” Both lethal and nonlethal deterrents are important, he stressed. “You have to have all the tools, and get them all out of the box.”

The state Wolf Advisory Group concluded work Thursday on a suite of recommendations to the department intended to embrace strategies in the coming grazing year.

Changes recommended by the group this year would allow a swifter deployment of lethal removal of wolves, particularly in the case of an acute outbreak of aggression toward livestock. Fish and Wildlife makes the final decision on the policy, and its implementation.

The goal of quicker intervention is to save more wolves and livestock. “The preference is to change the behavior immediately,” said Donny Martorello, wolf- policy lead for the state.

The WAG also encouraged more use of nonlethal deterrents intended to stop wolf depredations on livestock before they happen. The department already is deploying nonlethal tools with ranchers in a program that is catching on so much the state could not meet all the demand last year, Martorello said.

That includes flagging on fences, lighting and people on horseback and ATVs to keep wolves away from sheep and cattle.

Most Washington ranchers have been able to coexist with wolves, but the state has moved to kill three packs preying on livestock: the Wedge Pack in 2012, the Huckleberry Pack in 2014 and the Profanity Peak Pack in 2016.

Listed as a state endangered species everywhere in Washington, wolves also are federally protected in the western two-thirds of the state.

“Our job is to recover this species,” Martorello said. “They are generalists, and they do quite well, they arrived all on their own, they are natural colonizers,” he said. “It’s a wave of recovery that started in Idaho and Montana and Wyoming and it will keep going across Washington.”

While the goal is to be as proactive as possible to avoid conflict between wolves and livestock, no one should expect perfect peace.

“There are going to be conflicts; it’s not vision zero,” Martorello said. “But can we look ahead and be strategic? Yes.”

Arron Scotten, a fifth-generation rancher in Kettle Falls and a member of the WAG, said he wants to be able to turn his cattle operation over to the seventh generation in his family.

“Both ranchers and wolves are here to stay,” Scotten said. “We have to figure out how to make this work with both of them on the landscape.”